I’m surprised it took so long actually, but after six months on the market, my novel finally received its first (and second!) 1-star review. Every book out there with more than a handful of ratings has bad reviews, so I expected this at some point. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a published author, it’s that you can’t please everyone.

The thing that made my first couple of bad reviews particularly painful was that they didn’t come along with a wave of good reviews. There had been a dry spell of no ratings at all for almost a month, so when two ratings finally arrived and they were both terrible, it was a double whammy. My initial instinct was to curl up in a corner and cry. My second idea was to drink a glass (or seven) of wine. Eventually I turned to the Internet to find other authors lamenting their own bad reviews. I read a bunch of other authors’ posts about dealing with bad reviews, but the one that cheered me up was this one. Why? Because they pointed out that every book has 1-star reviews, even classic kids’ books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle!

So if you’re in need of some cheering up after receiving crappy ratings yourself, or if you just want a good laugh, check out these quotes from actual reviews on Goodreads of classic kids’ books. Seriously, people will criticize anything… these reviews are so awful they’re downright funny!

On Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne:
- Had Christopher Robin and his silly old bear been shot in the head at the beginning, it could have been a pretty good book.

On Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown:
- Reading Goodnight Moon is like drowning in a huge bowl of oatmeal (or “mush”, if you must): Bland, stultifying, lukewarm, heavy, soggy, and so sticky that it drags you down into its gross beigeness until you succumb to a clammy death in its depths.

On Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt:
- Bunnies disgust me.
- Why on earth would I want my child to rub her fingers on another man’s sandpaper beard? Worst book ever.

On Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson:
- Hey this kid is a total dick. Someone should tell him to put that goddamn crayon away and that drawing on the walls is a total dick move.

On Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss:
- Even in the womb, when my parents would read it to me, I would pitch a fit.

On If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff:
- Why can’t you just give the mouse the cookie and then say “No, you cannot go to school with me and steal my pencil and use it all up to write the story of your life that no one but you can read because mice can’t write in English. You cannot take up anymore of my time so that I have to run around and find very obscure objects and things for a mouse to want. No, you’re fine with just a cookie, and maybe a glass of milk.” Stand up to the mouse.

2 Comments:

I’m a blogger and reviewer and I HATE writing 1 or 2 star reviews, especially if I’ve spoken to the author by email or in a book group and feel I ‘know’ them on some level. When someone provides a free copy of their hard work for review, I feel like pond scum when I write that review! I used to be very harsh if I hated a book but now I try to be a bit more constructive about why it wasn’t my thing or what dragged the book down. It has allowed me to stay friends with authors AFTER giving them 1 or 2 stars! I will promote books that I didn’t like on my blog, groups and social networking sites so that other people can hear about the book and make up their own minds…and ease my guilty conscience a bit…*grins*

Thanks so much for your comment! I think it’s great you try to be constructive in your criticisms – I’ve seen some brutal reviews out there that attack the author personally and don’t even necessarily have anything to do with the book, yikes! There’s a silver lining to bad ratings anyway… they legitimize all the good ratings. If I see a book that only has 5-star reviews, it makes me pretty suspicious all the ratings are from the author’s friends and family. The odd bad rating lends credibility to the good ones.